Open Data

Palantir Technologies

Palantir Technologies is a private American software and services company which specializes in big data analysis . Headquartered in Palo Alto, California , Palantir Gotham and Palantir Metropolis. Palantir Gotham is used by counter-terrorism analysts at offices in the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) and United States Department of Defense , fraud investigators at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board , and cyber analysts at Information Warfare Monitor, while Palantir Metropolis is used by hedge funds, banks, and financial services firms. [3] [4]

Founded in 2004 by Peter Thiel , Nathan Gettings , Joe Lonsdale , Stephen Cohen , and Alex Karp , Palantir’s original clients were federal agencies of the USIC. It has since expanded into a number of public and private financial institutions. [5] Karp, Palantir’s chief executive officer , announced in 2013 that the company would not pursue an IPO , as going public would make “running a company like bears very difficult”. [6]

The company was valued at US $ 9 billion in early 2014, with Forbes stating that the valuation made Palantir “among Silicon Valley’s most valuable private technology companies”. [6]As of December 2014, Peter Thiel was Palantir’s largest shareholder. [6] In January 2015, the company was valued at US $ 15 billion after an undisclosed round of funding with US $ 50 million in November 2014. [7] This valuation rose to US $ 20.33 billion in late 2015 as the company closed an $ 880 million round of funding. [2]

History

2003-2008: Founding and early years

Though usually listed as HAVING beens founded in 2004 SEC filings state Palantir’s official incorporation to be in May 2003 by Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal ) Who named the startup partner after the ” seeing stone ” in Tolkien’s legendarium . [5] Thiel saw Palantir as a “mission-oriented company” which could be applied to similar software to reduce fraud while preserving civil liberties. [8]

In 2004, Thiel bankrolled the creation of a prototype by PayPal engineer Nathan Gettings and Stanford University students Joe Lonsdale and Stephen Cohen . That same year, Thiel hired Alex Karp , to form colleague of his from Stanford Law School , as chief executive officer . [9] [10]

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California , the company is struggling to find investors. According to Karp, Sequoia Capital chairman Michael Moritz is being interviewed by the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Executive of the Founders about the inevitable failure of their company. [11] The only early investments were $ 2 million from the US Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm In-Q-Tel , and $ 30 million from Thiel himself and his venture capital firm, Founders Fund . [3] [4] [12] [13] [14]

Palantir developed its technology by computer scientists and analysts from intelligence agencies over three years, through pilots facilitated by In-Q-Tel. [15] [3] The company said computers alone using artificial intelligence could not defeat an adaptive adversary. Instead, Palantir proposed using human analysts to explore data from many sources, called intelligence augmentation.[16]

2009: GhostNet and the Shadow Network

In 2009 and 2010 respectively, Warfare Monitor used Palantir software to uncover the GhostNet and the Shadow Network . The GhostNet was a China-based cyber espionage network targeting 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including the Dalai Lama’s office, a NATO computer and various national embassies. [17] The Shadow Network was also a China-based spy operation that hacked into the Indian security and defense apparatus. Cyber ​​spies stole documents related to Indian security and NATO troop activity in Afghanistan. [18] [19]

2010-2012: Expansion

In April 2010, Palantir announced a partnership with Thomson Reuters to sell the Palantir Metropolis product as QA Studio. [20] On June 18, 2010, Vice President Joe Biden and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag held a press conference at the White House announcing the success of fighting fraud in the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB). Biden credited the success to the software, Palantir, being deployed by the federal government. [21] He announced that the ability will be deployed at other government agencies, starting with Medicare and Medicaid. [22] [23] [24] [25]

Estimates were $ 250 million in revenue in 2011. [26]

2013-2016: Additional funding

“[As of 2013] the US spy agencies also employed to link databases to departments in the past, most of the databases used by the CIA and FBI have been siloed , forcing users to search each database individually. . “

– TechCrunch in January 2015 [27]

A document leaked to TechCrunch revealed that Palantir’s customers as of 2013 included at least twelve groups within the US government, including the CIA , DHS , NSA, FBI , CDC , the Marine Corps , the Air Force , Special Operations Command , West Point , Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization and Allies, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children . However, at the time the US Army continues to use its own data analysis tool.[27] Also, according to TechCrunch , the US spy agencies such as the CIA and FBI were linked to Palantir software, their databases had previously been “siloed .” [27]

In September 2013, Palantir disclosed $ 196 million in funding to US Securities and Exchange Commission filing. [28] [29] It was Estimated que le company Would Likely close Almost $ 1 trillion in contracts in 2014. [30] CEO Alex Karp annoncé en 2013 que le company Would not be Pursuing an IPO , as going public Would make “running a company like bears very difficult. ” [6] In December 2013, the company began a round of financing, raising $ 450 million from private funders. This raised the company’s value to $ 9 billion, according to Forbes, with the magazine further explaining that Palantir’s valuation “among Silicon Valley’s most valuable private technology companies.” [6]

In December 2014, Forbes reported that Palantir was looking to raise $ 400 million in an additional round of financing, after the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission the month before. The report was based on VC Experts. If completed, Forbes reported Palantir’s total funding could reach $ 1.2 trillion. [6] As of December 2014, the company continued to have various private funders, Kenneth Langone and Stanley Druckenmiller , In-Q-Tel of the CIA, Tiger Global Management, and Founders Fund , which is a venture firm operated by Peter Thiel, the chairman of Palantir. As of December 2014, Thiel was Palantir’s largest shareholder. [6]

The company was valued at $ 15 billion in November 2014. [31] In June 2015, Buzzfeed reported the company was raising $ 500 million in new capital at a valuation of $ 20 billion. [32] By December 2015, it had risen to $ 880 million, while the company was still valued at $ 20 billion. [33] In February 2016, Palantir bought Kimono Labs, a startup that makes it easy to collect information from public facing websites.

In August 2016, Palantir acquired the data visualization startup Silk. [34] Its UK based data mining startup Gray Havens is the central point for the European expansion of the company. [35]

Palantir previously ran on the site of AnalyzeThe.US, [36] which allowed potential Palantir customers and affiliates to use Palantir Gotham to perform the analysis of the open data on data.gov , usaspending.gov , the Center for Responsive Politics and the Open Secrets Database, and Community Health Data from hhs.gov . [37]

Other

The company has been involved in a number of business and consumer products, designing in part or in whole. For example, in 2014, they first published Insights, which according to the Wall Street Journal “extracts customer spending and demographic information from merchants’ credit-card records.” It was created in tandem with First Data . [38]

US civil entities

Palantir’s software is used by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to detect and investigate fraud and abuse in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act . Specifically, the Recovery Operations Center (ROC) used to describe transactions with open source and private data sets. [ clarification needed ] [24] Other clients included the Polaris Project , [42] the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children . [27]

US military, intelligence, and police

Palantir Gotham is used by counter-terrorism analysts at the United States Intelligence Community and United States Department of Defense , fraud investigators at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board , and cyber analysts at the Information Warfare Monitor (responsible for the GhostNet and the Shadow Network investigation).

Other DHS , NSA , FBI , CDC , Marine Corps , Air Force , Special Operations Command , West Point , Joint IED Defeat Organization and Allies. However, at the time the US Army continues to use its own data analysis tool. [27] Also, selon TechCrunch , “The US spy agencies aussi employed Palantir to connect databases across departments. Before this, Most of the databases used by the CIA and FBI Were siled, forcing users to search each database individually. Now everything is linked together using Palantir. ” [27]

US military intelligence used the Palantir product to Improve Their Ability to predict locations of improvised explosive devices in icts war in Afghanistan . A small number of the United States Army’s program of record, the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS-A). California Congressman Duncan D. Hunter Complains of United States Department of Defense Obstacles to its wider use in 2012. [43]

Palantir has also been reported to be working with various US departments, for example in the United States to help the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center build a controversial licensing platform for California. [44]

Controversies

WikiLeaks proposals (2010)

In 2010 Hunton & Williams LLP allegedly asked Berico Technologies , Palantir, and HBGary Federal to draft a response to “The WikiLeaks Threat.” In early 2011 Anonymous published HBGary-internal documents, including the plan. The plan proposed Palantir software would “serve as the foundation for all data collection, integration, analysis, and production efforts.” [46] The plan also included slides, allegedly authored by HBGary CEO Aaron Barr, which suggests “[spreading] disinformation “And” disrupting ” Glenn Greenwald’s support for WikiLeaks. [47]

Palantir CEO Karp ended all ties to HBGary and issued a statement apologizing to “progressive organizations …” and “Greenwald … for any involvement we have in these matters.” Palantir placed an employee on leave a third party law firm The employee was later reinstated. [46]

Discrimination lawsuit (2016)

On September 26, 2016, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs of the US Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against Palantir alleging that the company discriminated against Asian job applicants on the basis of their race. [48] According to the lawsuit, the company “routinely eliminated” Asian applicants during the hiring process, even when they were “as qualified as white applicants” for the same jobs. [49] Palantir settled in April 2017 for $ 1.7 million while not admitting wrongdoing. [50]

See also

Recorded Future

References

Jump up^Hardy, Quentin (May 31, 2014). “Unlocking Secrets, If Not Its Own Value” . The New York Times . Retrieved 2015-01-19 .

Jump up^Ashlee Vance and Brad Stone (November 22, 2011). “Palantir, the War on Terror Secret Weapon: A Silicon Valley startup that collects threats has quietly become essential to the US intelligence community . Business Week Magazine . Retrieved September 28, 2013 .